It's January 13th. Laura's spring camp signup page is live. The first email of the spring sequence goes out at 8 AM tomorrow to the 412 parents she's built up over three seasons. The page header says 2027. The booking link works on the first click. The coffee on her desk is still warm.
That's the version of this post worth writing. The one where the launch goes out on time.
The version we usually walk into is the other one. The 10:47 PM Tuesday in March, the cold coffee, the page header still says 2024, the email sends in eight hours and the link is broken. We've watched that version more times than the warm-coffee version.
This playbook is how to get to the warm-coffee version.
The window — when parents actually sign up
Parents don't sign up for spring camps in November. They don't sign up in December. The peak signup window for May-June junior camps is February through early April, with a smaller late-March panic spike for parents who left it late.
Three phases inside the window:
What that pattern means for the marketing calendar is specific. Your spring schedule needs to be live on your website by January 10th at the latest. Your first email goes out the second week of January, while Phase 1 parents are still browsing. Your second email lands in late January as Phase 1 turns into Phase 2. The bulk of the email sequence runs in February, when bookings actually happen. The last email of the sequence is the late-March "we're nearly full / waitlist" email that catches Phase 3.
The PGA Jr. League player registration cycle confirms the same window — PGA opens registration in late November, but actual parent signups cluster in February-April. The franchise league shows the same seasonality the independent programs do.
The list — last year's parents are 80% of this year's signups
The single biggest asset a junior coach has is the parent list from prior seasons. Returning families convert at 3-4x the rate of cold leads from search or referrals. Most coaches under-invest in the list and wonder every spring why the funnel feels harder than it should.
Where to keep the list: not in your phone contacts. Not in a Gmail starred folder. In an actual email service — even the free tier of a tool like Mailchimp, Buttondown, or ConvertKit — with a real signup form on your website and a real consent record per address. The consent record matters legally and it matters for deliverability.
The 4 list segments you need and what to send each:
- Returning families (signed up last year, kid stayed through the program). First-pick window. Email goes out January 13. Subject line names the first-pick framing explicitly. These parents convert at 50-60% on the first email if your timing is right.
- Returning families who didn't finish (signed up but kid dropped out). Soft re-engagement email. Acknowledge the drop, name what's different this year, lower-pressure CTA. Convert at 15-25%.
- Inquired-but-didn't-book (asked questions last year but didn't sign up). Slightly later in the sequence — late January. Frame the new schedule as the "second chance" version of last year's question. Converts at 10-20%.
- New leads from the current year (signed up for the newsletter or filled out a contact form since last spring). Standard sequence, same dates as the broader list. Converts at 5-15% — lower than returning families but the volume is usually larger.
The segmentation isn't optional. A single email blast to all four segments at once underperforms a 4-segment sequence by a wide margin — we've watched this in coach-client analytics across the last two spring cycles. The four-segment version is more work in week one and less work in every week after.
The 5-email spring sequence
The sequence is five emails across nine weeks. Subject lines, send dates, primary CTAs:
| Email | Send date | Subject line example | Primary CTA | |---|---|---|---| | 1 — "Spring lineup is ready" | Jan 13 | Spring 2027 junior camps — the schedule's up | View the camps | | 2 — "Returning families get first pick" | Jan 27 | First pick goes to last year's families until Feb 4 | Reserve your spot | | 3 — "Spots are filling" | Feb 12 | 12 of 24 spots gone in the 9 AM Tuesday slot | Book before it's full | | 4 — "Final reminders" | Feb 26 | One week left — and 4 spots in the 8-9 year old group | Book today | | 5 — "Last call / waitlist" | Mar 12 | Camp is full — get on the spring waitlist | Join waitlist |
A few notes on each:
Email 1 is the calendar drop. Don't oversell. Just tell them what's happening, when, what it costs, and link to the page. The job of email 1 is to register that you're running spring programs, not to convert.
Email 2 is the first-pick framing. The "until Feb 4" deadline is real — after that date, the spots go to non-returning families on the regular email sequence. Don't fake the deadline. If you fake it, the segment learns the deadlines are decorative and the urgency stops working.
Email 3 is the social-proof email. The "12 of 24 spots gone" headline only works if it's true. Use real numbers. If you're at 4 of 24, write that — the honesty itself converts ("only 4 spots gone" tells parents they're early, which is its own pitch).
Email 4 is the last-week reminder, segmented by program. Name specific spots in specific groups. Generic last-week reminders perform worse than segment-specific ones.
Email 5 is the most-skipped email and the one we push hardest for. Once the camp is full, send the "get on the waitlist" email. Two reasons: parents who got close to deciding and didn't book often book the next program (summer camp, fall clinic) when they realize they've missed the spring spot. And the waitlist itself is your warmest lead pool for the next season.
The landing page — what closes the parent who clicks
The email gets the parent to the landing page. The landing page closes them or doesn't. The 6 elements above the fold — visible without scrolling on a phone — are non-negotiable.
| Dimension | Converts | Doesn't |
|---|---|---|
| Above the fold | Start date, end date, age range, price, 1-2 photos, signup CTA — all visible on a phone | Hero image with marketing copy. Specifics buried below the fold. |
| Signup mechanism | One-step form (name, email, kid's age, group selection) | Email-the-coach trap or 4-step sign-up flow that asks for everything before showing prices. |
| Photo count | 8-15 photos of last year's kids on the range, on the green, with the coach | 1 stock photo of generic kids holding clubs |
| FAQ | 5-8 questions covering what to bring, what to expect, what happens if my kid doesn't have clubs | No FAQ — parents email and you spend Sunday answering 14 versions of the same 5 questions |
| Policy clarity | Cancellation policy, makeup-session policy, weather policy named in plain language | "Contact us for our policies" or no policy mentioned |
| Mobile load time | Under 1.5 seconds on a mid-range Android over 4G | 4+ seconds because the hero is a 4MB unoptimized image |
The mobile load time is the one most coaches don't realize is a conversion factor. A page that takes 4 seconds to load on a phone has already lost 30% of the parents who clicked. The bounce happens before they see a single word of your copy.
The website-builder side of getting the page right — fast load, structured data, real photos, mobile-first layout — is what we cover in the pricing page. The marketing-side is your half: the 5 emails, the segments, the landing page content. The two halves fit together. A perfect landing page on a slow site doesn't convert. A great email sequence pointing at a landing page with no specifics doesn't convert either.
The Google Business Profile play during signup window
Most coaches treat GBP as a setup-once thing. During spring signup window, GBP is an active marketing channel — and it's underused.
Use the Posts feature weekly during Jan-March. Each post is a 1,500-character announcement: "Spring 6-week clinic — Tuesdays at 4:30 PM at [range], starts Feb 18, ages 8-12, $240 per kid. Link in description." Posts stay live indefinitely (Google removed the 7-day expiration in 2023), so they accumulate as a parent-facing record of what you've been running.
Pair the Posts with the photo strategy. Upload 1-2 new photos a month during signup window. The freshness signal compounds with the Posts. The full GBP setup walkthrough covers the Post feature mechanics — and how it fits into the broader local-search picture.
The photos themselves are doing real work. Stock photos kill the page. Real photos of last year's kids — with parent consent on file — close parents the way nothing else does. The lesson photography post covers the photo strategy this whole landing page depends on, including the consent forms for junior photos.
For the 17 program formats that actually fill camps, the program ideas post breaks down each one. For the broader picture of how marketing fits into a working junior program — the pricing math, the program design, the photo strategy — the junior program playbook covers the full picture.
Frequently asked questions
Frequently asked questions
Second week of January. The parents searching at that point are returning families looking ahead, not panic-buying. The "first pick" framing converts them at 30-40% open-to-booking rates we've seen across coach client newsletters. Earlier than mid-January and you're emailing while parents are still in holiday mode. Later than late January and you've missed the Phase 1 window.
Build one this year. Two free ways: a "notify me when spring registration opens" form on your homepage that collects emails Sept-December, and a "would you like to hear about spring 2027?" question in this year's signup confirmation email. Both work. The first one converts about 1-3% of homepage visitors. The second one converts 40-60% of this year's parents into next year's list. Combined, you have a real list before next January.
Most coaches don't need to. Email plus Google Business Profile plus word of mouth fills 8-12 kid clinics in most markets. Paid ads make sense once you're running 4+ camps a season and the marketing math justifies the spend — usually $300-$800 per camp in ad budget at that scale. Below that, the ROI math doesn't work as well as putting the same hours into the email sequence and the GBP photos.
Last year's kids on the range, on the green, with the coach. Real ones, not stock. Parents look at the photos before they read anything else on the page — most parents make the "is this for my kid" decision before scrolling past the hero. Stock photos signal "this is a generic camp" and lose parents who would have booked. The full photo strategy is in the lesson photography post linked above.
As soon as the page is live. Most coaches publish their spring schedule in early January and accept signups immediately. The earlier you publish, the more parents you catch in the "thinking about it" Phase 1 window — those parents are researching options in December and January, and the coach whose page is up first usually wins the first-pick conversation.
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